Abortion rights protests becoming more popular

Florida voters will have the opportunity to vote for abortion rights in the 2024 elections, as the Florida Supreme Court on Monday approved placing  a proposed amendment to Florida’s constitution on the ballot this November that would restrict Florida’s ability to ban abortion “before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health.” The proposed ballot measure emerged after the 6-3 Republican majority U.S. Supreme Court, with three new Republican justices nominated by Donald Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ruling that there is no constitutional right to abortion, and turning the issue over to the states. That year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis  had signed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks. Then, last year, just before announcing his ill-fated presidential campaign, DeSantis signed a new six-week abortion ban. The Florida Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday allowed even the more restrictive six-week ban to take effect, highlighting the urgency of the voter amendment.

Florida has voted more Republican in recent years since Barack Obama won the state in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. For example, Ron DeSantis was elected Governor in 2018 by the narrowest of margins, but won re-election in 2022 by quite a large number of votes. Likewise, both houses of Florida’s legislature have big Republican majorities. And of course, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Florida presidential election, and also beat Joe Biden in Florida in 2020.

The Florida abortion rights ballot measure, however, has the chance to turn Florida competitive for the Democrats once again in the 2024 elections, especially at the presidential level. Since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, for example, abortion rights have been a major issue helping the Democrats in numerous elections around the country. Moreover, according to a poll released last month, 12 percent of voters say that abortion is the most important issue in the 2024 elections, and such voters overwhelmingly support President Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Likewise, a poll released last November indicated that 62 percent of Florida voters favored the proposed abortion rights amendment. The Florida Supreme Court’s abortion rulings (as well as its ruling approving the placement on the ballot in November of a proposed constitutional amendment allowing recreational marijuana use for adults) similarly could drive Democratic and Independent voter turnout to defeat the Republicans in certain Sunshine State elections this year.

At the same time that so many Democratic voters are galvanizing around abortion rights and women’s health, the Republicans’ success in their 49-year effort to overturn Roe v. Wade ironically could take this central issue off the table for them in the upcoming elections. Accordingly, Florida may well become the place this November where Republicans learn the adage, “be careful what you wish for.”

Photo by Fibonacci Blue, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/uxGiIf

Nikki Haley, still taking votes from Donald Trump

Last Tuesday (March 19), Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio and Kansas held their Republican presidential primaries. While Donald Trump, like President Joe Biden, had previously earned the necessary number of delegates to be his party’s nominee, a look at these latest primary results show a lingering problem for Trump. Specifically, while Trump has run unopposed since Nimrata “Nikki” Haley dropped out of the race on “Super Tuesday,” March 6, Trump has not gotten anywhere near the voting percentage that he should now be getting in the Republican primaries.

In Florida, for example, Trump received just over 81 percent of the vote. Nikki Haley received nearly 14 percent, and Ron DeSantis received 3.7 percent, even though both Haley and DeSantis are no longer running. According to Newsweek:

The results suggest the former president is losing support in Florida compared with the previous election in 2020. That year, he won about 94 percent of the state vote in the primary.

As for the excuse that some votes may have been cast for Haley before she dropped out on March 6, that would not explain that (a) plenty of early votes were cast after March 6, including early in-person voting on and after March 14, and (b) not only did Ron DeSantis receive a good number of votes, even Chris Christie received nearly 9,000 votes, and each of them dropped out of the campaign last January.